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Have any of you had national park, forest or monument rangers confront you for, or question you about painting on public land?

I know that the feds require permits for plein air groups now in many (all?) public places when the painters are paying a fee to someone for the workshop. A workshop permit is not a simple thing to obtain and in many cases impossible to get. If you are photographing for commercial use rather than your own artistic expression, you are also required to have a permit of some kind though it isn't the same type as what is needed for a workshop. I haven't heard of this being extended to painters....yet. Have any of you?

This isn't a recent post (April 2014) but worth reading if you paint or do workshops on public land.

In the mountain west, anyway, the public outdoors is simply a whole different planet now from the one I moved to in the late '70's. It's just how it is.

The amount of Nat'l Park, Nat'l Forest, BLM, and State Park real estate is finite, even sometimes diminishing. People keep coming, keep reproducing, and keep recreating, and the recreation industry aggressively markets ever more sophisticated (and more deluxe-sized) access machines, from ATVs and motorboats to mobile-home-sized "campers" that shoe-horn into campgrounds laid out for car-borne tent camping.

Forget about Yellowstone or Yosemite, try "getting away" to Rocky Mountain Nat'l Park on a weekend.

Still, I don't know of anyplace where I can hike or camp, that I can't also paint.

I get that, particularly in popular high-use areas near population centers, public-land custodians are ever more sensitive to commercial use. So within an hour or two of cities and big towns, you need a permit to conduct a workshop, and I can no longer car camp without being surrounded, or even squeezed out, by Big-Footprint Winnebagoes.

If you encounter enough ranger presence to make it an issue, then you can bet that land is used enough to warrant it.

If you get far enough beyond the crowds, you're not likely to encounter enough ranger presence to make it an issue.

[this is more rant than it sounded while it was still in my head, but I'll let it ride]

As a tent-camper I hear what you are saying about being squeezed out! Most campgrounds here in the east are a misery due to the huge RVs (and their generators), Formerly pretty, peaceful campgrounds are being 'improved' with more pavement, lighting, etc. to service the monster RVs. The west is feeling this too. However, the good part is that those folks are pretty tethered to their wifi and air conditioning, and you don't have to hike too far to find a peaceful spot to paint. I've never had anyone ask to see my permit but I fear that day is coming.

I've painted in several N.P.s and the only time I was restricted was in Mesa Verde. The park was awash with people and I found that while I could paint the rangers insisted that I not obstruct the trail nor leave it. At that they seemed to wish I'd not even tried to paint there. Obviously if you go to very popular parks and visit them at their busiest times you will have problems.

Hi Contumacious - Thanks for referring to my blog post about my experience with the USFS in Sedona. As a follow up to that, a couple of years after it, I was invited to apply for a commercial permit to teach art workshops there. Unfortunately, the paperwork required (quarterly statements, P&L, etc., plus advance payment on anticpated income) was more suitable for a corporation. As a guy teaching small workshops and making very little off of them, well, I would have gone broke hiring CPAs and the like. Clearly, the USFS was saying I was too small to bother with, but hey, don't even think about teaching a workshop in the National Forest. Think Pink Jeep Tours, hot air balloon tours and ATV rentals. Yes, that's what they wanted instead. (My argument was that my little workshops have far less impact on the environment than any of those, even the balloon tours, which serve a champagne brunch after the tour on public land! The reason, of course, was the money, and has nothing to do with our impact on nature.)

Recently, photographers have been kicked out of the Sedona Red Rock District for taking photos -- even though they weren't teaching workshops or running a commercial operation. The argument was that, well, they MIGHT be selling their photographs.

On the other hand, you can still paint in the Sedona Red Rock District by yourself or with a group, so long as you aren't a commercial operation. The same holds true for all the National Parks, Monuments and Historic Sites I've painted in. So long as you are respectful of other people and don't block access to iconic views, you are fine.

But then...St Augustine, Florida, among other cities, has outlawed plein air painting in the downtown area.

Yes, Zion has gotten busier. We were there in mid-April, which is normally a slow time. The shuttle driver told us that for the last few years, there has been no slow season - it's busy all the time. November is nice and quiet, especially if snow is in the forecast! But that's a beautiful time, too.